Austria urges EU funding cuts for countries that refuse refugees

Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern has called for EU members who refuse to accept refugees to receive less funding from the bloc’s budget.

“The EU funds have to be distributed more fairly among the members of the European Union,” Kern told Die Welt in an interview published Wednesday. Countries that shirk their responsibilities on migration “should not receive payments worth billions from Brussels,” he said.

Kern said such countries expected support on issues of economic development, security or sanctions against Russia, but “don’t want to hear anything about solidarity” when it comes to migration.

“Selective solidarity should result in selective payments,” Kern said, adding that his statement was not intended as a threat.

Germany and Austria could not continue to contribute high amounts into the EU budget if the bloc did not come to an agreement on a fair distribution of refugees, he said.

Kern also warned that Brexit will leave a significant hole in the EU budget and that Austria’s goal in negotiations would be to avoid increasing its payments to Brussels as a result.

Austria belongs to the bloc’s net contributors — along with Germany, France and the U.K. — and pays around €850 million into the EU budget every year.

Poland, which receives €9.5 billion every year — the highest recipient, followed by the Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary — has not accepted a single refugee since 2015, despite being asked to take in more than 6,000 as part of the EU’s relocation scheme.

Authors:

Related stories on these topics:

alan

As well as ‘selective payments’ perhaps Austria might look at ‘selective contributions’ – only supporting budget contributions for activity you actually support?

Posted on 3/8/17 | 1:00 PM CEST

Seriously?

Austria is the last country to preach on migrants: after demonising Hungary for protecting itself it has changed position 360 degrees and is doing exactly the same for which it attacked Hungary.
Moreover, if a club’s member unilaterally invites a thousand strangers to help themselves from the club’s table, that member should not demand that other members share in footing the bill.

Posted on 3/8/17 | 1:07 PM CEST

Anonymous

Sounds fair get ask for money without obligation it is called free trade or fair trade

Posted on 3/8/17 | 2:26 PM CEST

Nat

@Seriously?

perhaps you would also be better off without the EU. perhaps within Russia? you seem to share similar values and convictions…

greetings from the liberated UK
(we’re so free. it’s crazy. it’s true! we can grab them by the pony. no more bad (and sad) EU!)

Posted on 3/8/17 | 2:27 PM CEST

qwa-qwa

@Nat

perhaps you would be better within central Africa and middle east? you seem to share similar values and convictions…

Posted on 3/8/17 | 3:23 PM CEST

qwa-qwa

Austria that was inviting migrants, Austria that was offending countries that were showing rational attitude to the problem, Austria that is breaking freedom of movement for workers. Bunch of hypocrites.

Posted on 3/8/17 | 3:30 PM CEST

Tom Cullem

Brilliant idea! That should finally persuade the electorates in those countries that Britain was right all along: the EU is just a tyrannical group of despots who want to move from controlling intra-EU migration to power over non-EU immigration into their countries. And when the funding decreases, it will again beg the question: what are we doing in this institution with lowered economic benefits?

Especially given that the refugees will keep coming in as long as Europe keeps trying to shove them down other countries’ throats.

Go right ahead! Start defunding the countries who don’t want to bring in a wedge of Africans and Muslims to start dismantling their countries the way the French, Italians, Dutch, British, and Swedish allowed immigration to dismantle their cultures!

That should finish off the EU superstate well ahead of schedule.

Posted on 3/8/17 | 3:31 PM CEST

ab

Excellent idea !

Instead of hiding small percentage of due German war reparations under disguise of “EU subsidies” Poland should demand full reparations.
The amount would be much bigger and funded only by the country that was responsible for crimes and material destruction of Poland.

To understand whole issue it is critical to realize that for Germans “EU subsidies” are equivalent of war reparations that they have not paid for destroying other countries including Poland.

Human and material losses inflicted by Germany to Poland during WWII can probably be estimated in trillions of euros. Just take into account a fee that EU Commission wants to impose on countries that don’t want to take so called “refugees” – 250.000 EUR/person/year and apply that fee to human losses in Poland during WWII, even without taking into account time factor: 6 million x 250.000 EUR gives EUR 1,5 trillion for human losses alone. Taking into account also material losses would probably double that number.
Germany has never covered such damages and when you compare those estimates with so called “EU subsidies” you realize that subsidies are just a small percentage of WWII damages inflicted by Germany.

Now what is German position concerning EU subsidies vs war reparations ?
From interview with Frank Schorkopf – a professor for international law at the Universtiy of Göttingen
“(… )SPIEGEL: That sounds like a deal: Eschewing reparations in exchange for acceptance into the currency union?
Schorkopf: Perhaps not so direct. But in unspoken terms, these associated transfers of wealth were the implicit way in which Germany sought to do justice to its responsibility for World War II. The so-called Economic Miracle (in Germany) was also made possible by the fact that the question of reparations was put aside in the London Debt Agreement, explicitly so that Germany could prosper. As a part of European integration, other countries rightly profited from that — especially the Greeks. It was a smart and modern form of addressing the issue of reparations. With that, in my opinion, demands for reparations should not only be rejected for formal legal reasons, they should also be viewed as having been fulfilled economically, politically and morally.”

So why British, Dutch, French, etc. accept to participate in funding Germany’s reparations for war damages in the form of EU funds ?!?
They should be funded solely by Germany !
Moreover “EU subsidies” amount to just small percentage of war damages inflicted by Germany, so for Germany it is a very good deal. They pay much less than they should and some other countries participate in funding those transfers – very clever !

So summing up thanks to “EU subsidies” Germany avoids paying much more costly war damages.
I personally think that so called “EU subsidies” should be scrapped and Germany should simply pay due war reparations.
It would be beneficial for EU taxpayers from other countries that unjustly fund such transfers as well as for the countries that have not received any compensation for war damages.